Apple vs the Law

> "They managed to convince the courts that iPadOS is a separate operating system to iOS (it's not), which delayed iPadOS being designated as a gatekeeper for almost a year. They are currently challenging all of the rest: the iOS, Safari, and App Store designations, and successfully managed to avoid iMessage being designated at all. They have taken the DMA law to court for an apparently ambiguous comma in article 5(4) - the payment one, and for somehow infringing on human rights law in article 6(7) - the interoperability one."

Looking at the actual filing[1], Apple says:

> "First plea in law, alleging that Article 6(7) of Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 is inconsistent with the requirements of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and the principle of proportionality, and that Article 2(b) of the European Commission Decision of 5 September 2023 is unlawful insofar as it imposes the obligations under Article 6(7) of Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 on Apple in relation to iOS."

For context, here are the full contents of Article 6(7):

"The gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services."

[1] https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsession...

Apple creates vertically integrated devices. For many people, Apple dictates their entire digital life - far more so than any megacorporation on the mere level of, say Google, could ever hope to, considering Apple owns the hardware, software, and everything in between. So they are in a position shared by no other company - they are entirely unique in this. You cannot buy a device with entirely Google-designed hardware and software - Pixels with Android come close, Chromebooks come close, but nothing reaches Apple, even without custom silicon. I would say the closest company that exists in terms of vertical integration is Oxide Computer, but those aren't consumer devices.

So it's not that Apple is the only company doing this. It's also not that they're "doing it worse than any other company". It's that when they do this it affects people on a level not shared by any other company. It has a much larger impact than anybody else ever could.

For the record, I don't mind Apple's vertical integration, in fact that's one of their main selling points for me. It just gives them the greatest possible leverage to implement these sorts of practices.

I don’t really understand this distinction. How is eg a Pixel 9 Pro running Android with GMS on a Tensor any less entirely Google-designed than an iPhone 16 is entirely Apple-designed?